Cut scenes in your RPG

[Sadras]

I don't mind players having information their characters might not have. It's a useful tool to impart information to the players, even if they never act upon it directly with their characters. It's good for setting up dramatic irony.

and

I've done it a few times. The best times have been when, at the start of the adventure, I give my PCs some character sheets and they play through the cut scene.
Usually that scene ends in the new 'PCs' dying at the hands of the enemy.

This.

Actually this is described in 4e Dungeon Masters Guide II: Chapter 1, specifically under the heading Vignettes (which include flashbacks, interactions, dreams sequences, time transitions and 3 person teasers). You could even have the players play the 3rd persons that way its not just the DM rambling
IMHO, it is a good book for DMs playing ANY edition.

 

[Jhaelen]

Actually this is described in 4e Dungeon Masters Guide II: Chapter 1, specifically under the heading Vignettes (which include flashbacks, interactions, dreams sequences, time transitions and 3 person teasers).

Yup, I have used it like that once in 4e with the players basically taking the place of their ancestors. It worked okay.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

As a general rule, in an RPG you shouldn't cut to a scene displaying information that the characters couldn't actually have, because the players are participants in the scene rather than observers.

Two of my GMs use cutscenes for preludes and interludes to their campaigns and I love them. Players don't abuse or blur the player/character knowledge so it serves as a tool for the GMs to show plot points that happen off camera. The cutscenes only give out tidbits of the overall plot so the plot isn't spoiled but they provide mysteries for the players to bandy around. It reminds me of how Lost made viewers active in uncovering mysteries of the show, rather than be purely passive viewers.

The cutscenes are especially great in long-running campaigns as you piece together elements of the cutscenes and actual play and uncover some of the plot. When they're done this way my engagement and interest in the plot increases even though I'm not a participant in the cutscene.

"The silver dagger with runes that Baron von EvilGuy used last session sounds like it could be the same dagger that the shadowy figure used in the prelude. In the second interlude we saw the shadowy figure parlaying with the elves. So if the dagger means the shadowy figure is the Baron, why in the world are the elves dealing with him??"

 

[Celebrim]

It reminds me of how Lost made viewers active in uncovering mysteries of the show, rather than be purely passive viewers.

You say that like it was praise rather than damning.

The cutscenes are especially great in long-running campaigns as you piece together elements of the cutscenes and actual play and uncover some of the plot. When they're done this way my engagement and interest in the plot increases even though I'm not a participant in the cutscene.

Engagement in the plot is great and worth striving for. But I would have cited 'Lost' as an excellent example of just how lazy this sort of writing can be.

I can definitely see using a cut scene as a prelude that you can segue into the beginning of a campaign, especially if it represents backstory that literally everyone knows. I have a campaign where that sort of prelude backstory might make sense, because it would illustrate a story everyone knows from recent history which would become central to the campaign. Campaign beginnings are often tough, because PC's have history but you are starting in media res, with players not having the benefit of knowing everything that set the scene.

But I'm more skeptical of cut scene as interlude. Poorly done interludes are examples of some of the laziest worst most ham fisted writing ever to come out of TSR, and early 2e modules are just rife with them. One of the places where the DL modules really dropped the ball was in asking players to play out cutscenes as non-participants, rather than giving them the tools to create their own take on those scenes. Unlike preludes, I can't think of an example off the top of my head where I would advice a novice DM to use interlude cut scenes. Obviously, for a very experienced DM, just as with most rules regarding writing, you can probably think of a rare case where breaking the normal rules are justified. For example, I might use cutscenes to represent revelations to the player about their own character when its been established the character's own memory is unreliable, but even that I'd only do with explicit player permission to mess with their character and even then it represent things that their character knows and participated in, but just doesn't know they know and participated in.

A less lazy example of how to do cut scenes can be found in the 'Harry Potter' books, where Rawlings ties into the story as a major plot point a reason why the protagonist can from time to time know what the antagonist is doing. Since the story is being told from the protagonist's perspective, this allows the reader to see what they'd otherwise not get to know and deepens the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist in much the same way that Star Wars tells the story both from Luke's perspective and Vader's perspective, as well as being a story element that helps drives the plot. This sort of technique could be employed to good effect in an RPG without needing to make a PC out of the villain or violating the structure of the game.

Even that could get out of hand though, as RPGs are not novels and don't rely on the exact same techniques. Any time you are reading more than a single typed page, you are doing it wrong, and even that should be a rather rare event setting the stage for or framing a major plot point. Typically I only narrate that much text if their is an NPC telling a story within the story. I will never narrate that much text regarding what the PC's are forced to sit back and watch while other people do meaningful stuff.

And unlike you, I simply believe it is impossible for a player to not metagame, and it is somewhat unfair to ask a player to not do so.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

You say that like it was praise rather than damning.

I certainly am! I'm not saying Lost is the best plot ever. I'm very critical of many elements of Lost's story. But despite its flaws, in my experience and observations that show excelled at making viewers active participants along side of the characters rather than passively watching the story unfold for the characters. Which is what our cutscenes do as well.

 

[Celebrim]

But despite its flaws, in my experience and observations that show excelled at making viewers active participants along side of the characters rather than passively watching the story unfold for the characters.

I've written extensively about the X-Files syndrome plague that has gutted TV science fiction over the years. To say the least, I'm not a fan. To begin with, aside from Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future (or maybe 'Blues Clues' and its ilk, but then only if you are like 3), I'm unaware of any TV show that actually delivered on the experience of being an active participant in the show rather than just passive consumer of the show.

What you are actually talking about is a passive medium creating an active fan community, which is what nerds just do - see for example Star Trek or Star Wars. But the X-Files methodology for doing this, which has been copied repeatedly - The 4400, Lost, the Battlestar Galactica, so on and so forth - is to hint at a mystery by throwing out a bunch of random unexplained stuff and string the audience along as they try to piece together what is going on, when in fact the mysterious events aren't driven by an underlying coherent logical structure but simply the desire to have the audience engaged. It's a mental tease. Generally speaking, when you see this happening, it's almost a certain sign that the writer themselves has no clear idea what the mystery is, how they are going to tie things together and as such the payout is almost certain to be unsatisfying. But by that point, you've already wrung your profit from the audience. (See the last 20 years of JJ Abrams career.)

In general, a twist the reader didn't see coming but which is clear and coherent in hindsight is good writing. Whenever you have a twist, you therefore do your best to disguise that fact by not at any point hanging out a sign that says, "Look for the twist." (A good example of doing this well in a module is CM3: Saber River, although naturally a bad DM can spoil the twists.) Dangling out that you have a twist, often as not because you can't think of or execute a real one, is a trite writerly trick that ought to get people flogged at this point it has been so overused. These days, the minute I see a story dangling out that the audience should be looking for a twist that needs explaining, I drop it like the bad apple it is.

The cynical equivalent in RPGs is to throw out a mystery not knowing what the solution is, and then adopt one of your player's speculations as the answer.

I have never lost my temper with a DM, but if one tried that I'd be excusing myself so I wouldn't be tempted to hit them in the face.

Which is what our cutscenes do as well.

RPG stories should never be passively unfolding for the characters or the players. They are the actual actors. I have over the years come to understand the need of a hook to get players involved in the story quickly, and I can see you could use a cutscene to convince players that there is indeed some actual substance to the plot, but I'd much rather that was done by an actual participatory hook than simply asking players to watch the important NPCs do important and interesting things.

Moreover, the real technique you are engaging in here is hooking the players at the level of metagame. By showing them a cutscene of what their players couldn't know, you are creating player motivation to be involved in the story, but not character motivation to be involved in the story. If you were indeed counting on players to not abuse their metagame knowledge, the players would not animate their characters to be interested in what they could know only from a cutscene. In fact, quite the contrary is occurring. By showing them a cutscene of something more interesting than the game itself, you are counting on your players to metagame to go find that interesting thing.

I'm not saying that a cut scene of this sort is always bad. It's certainly infinitely preferable than being boring. There are almost certainly cases were good DMs can make it work. And it is the sort of thing that does work well in passive media like movies or novels. But the great virtue of an RPG is it is not passive media, and relying too heavily on techniques that work in passive media to deliver your exposition is very likely to be borrowing. For example, in your made up example, you don't have characters speaking to each other: you merely have players speaking to each other.

Perhaps it would help my understanding and encourage my sympathy if I had more concrete examples.

 

[Jhaelen]

The cynical equivalent in RPGs is to throw out a mystery not knowing what the solution is, and then adopt one of your player's speculations as the answer.

I have never lost my temper with a DM, but if one tried that I'd be excusing myself so I wouldn't be tempted to hit them in the face.

Good thing you weren't a player in my 3e campaign, then.

At the beginning of the campaign the pcs were ordered to investigate what had happened to a village where almost all of the inhabitants had mysteriously disappeared, with only a couple corpses remaining. There was some evidence pointing in the direction of mind flayers being behind this.
Unknown to the players an age-old conflict between Aboleth and Mind-Flayers had turned into a hot war, and at some later point it was just as likely that the Mind Flayers were actually behind it, or that the Aboleth were just trying to make it appear that way.
So, about two-thirds into the campaign they infiltrated a temple complex in the Underdark where both factions had a presence. The players' actions in that adventure determined who was the real threat to humanity. I, as the DM didn't care either way, and the players felt clever for having deduced it 'correctly'.

 

[Dog Moon]

I, as the DM didn't care either way, and the players felt clever for having deduced it 'correctly'.

Yeah, one of the things I've learned is that by forcing a plot or an answer to your mystery, things can actually go worse. What happens if the PCs miss a clue or something or go off on some random tangent?

Perhaps my best campaign is one where I set up some basic information, including a mystery, and basically let the PCs decide on things. In a couple of cases this ended up causing the PCs to go places completely unexpected, but by having a more open ended "ending" I was able to turn what they did into actually being helpful and driving the plot rather than going in the opposite direction and ruining everything. Granted, I did have to have a few things prepared, but seeing an expression on the players' faces when they guess something so outrageous that it couldn't be true and then actually having that be true is amazing.

And on topic, in my current campaign I've had a couple of cut scenes and I've done them briefly in the past, but they have to be select and limited. They can be great to show what's going on, but can't be used in too great of detail, in that they should never assume the PCs are going to act or not act or even where they are at. Some of the box text in adventures is terrible at this [Actually, this happens ALL the time. STOP ASSUMING THINGS!!!!] "Entering the room from the north, the boss stands waiting for you." Well, what happens if the PCs enter from the south? Or they teleport in using surprise? Or they sneak in? There are too many variables. However, if you use a cut scene to show the PCs some flavor in the world, that is fine, as it helps set up the mood.

I used a couple of cut scenes to show things off in the distance to throw in a little bit of "Huh, what is going on in the world?" Like the triad of Dragons flying high above the two, a gold, a black and a green. Immediately the PCs sense that something HUGE is going on in the world if such Dragons are flying together and not fighting. But one adventure had a Gnome and a Halfling like bickering or something and the guards watch. The Halfling then starts beating the Gnome or something [I can't remember all the details]. It was supposed to be a flavor piece, something to show the PCs that this city is rough and the guard are bastards, but then the PCs decide to step in. This flavor piece suddenly is no longer just flavor but there was no information given explaining what might happen. I was caught off guard and that "Flavor Scene" ended up hurting in the end rather than helping.

So like almost everything, done in the right way and not overdone, they can be useful and interesting. Otherwise, it's better not to have them.

 

[delericho]

Yeah, one of the things I've learned is that by forcing a plot or an answer to your mystery, things can actually go worse. What happens if the PCs miss a clue or something or go off on some random tangent?

1) That's why you have multiple clues.

2) It's okay for the PCs to fail in the adventure. Just make sure you make it clear that they've failed, so they don't then persist in trying to 'win' an unwinnable game.

 

[Celebrim]

Good thing you weren't a player in my 3e campaign, then.

Indeed.

I've only had a DM pull this sort of BS once, but I deduced the DM rolled that way within 3 hours of being at his table and simply didn't show up ever again.

But if I had invested significant time in a group only to discover that sort of thing going on, I would be fuming.